Japan Apologizes to South Korea on Colonization

TOKYO — Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan offered a renewed apology to South Korea on Tuesday for Japan’s brutal colonial rule, as part of a statement marking the 100th anniversary of his nation’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula in 1910.
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Everett Kennedy Brown/European Pressphoto Agency

Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan gave a policy speech in Tokyo after releasing a statement apologizing to South Korea for the damage caused by Japan’s colonial rule.

“For the enormous damage and suffering caused during this colonial rule, I would like to express once again our deep remorse and heartfelt apology,” Mr. Kan said in a statement, issued ahead of the Aug. 29 centenary of Japan’s annexation of Korea. The text largely repeated language Japan has used since the early 1990s in apologies to South Korea and other Asian victims of its military expansion in the early 20th century.

While the South Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it accepted Mr. Kan’s apology, anger at Japan still runs deep across the region....